State Gop Seeks Abortion Balance

Atwater: Make Room For 2 Sides

ROANOKE — The abortion issue continues to fiercely divide state Republicans who gathered here Saturday to talk about working together more effectively to get their candidates elected.

The party, gathering for its sixth annual post-election conference, is trying to determine if there is room for the "pro-choice" point of view in what is typically seen as a "pro-life" party.

Lee Atwater, head of the Republican National Committee, told the gathering there must be room for both points of view.

"You cannot run this year without dealing with" abortion, Atwater said. "We've got to have a diversity of viewpoints on this issue."

Atwater appeased pro-life supporters by saying that the position a candidate takes will not necessarily ensure victory. Candidates must remain firm on their stance, he said.

A resolution stating there is room for both pro-life and pro-choice factions in the party was being prepared by Donald Moseley, chairman of the 5th District Republicans, for presentation to the conference today.

The resolution mandates that party activists "support any candidate nominated by the party, regardless of that candidate's position on the issue of abor tion."

Moseley's resolution has been revised repeatedly in recent days to make it less offensive to the party's pro-life faction, but it remains a symbol of the party's potential shift away from the religious right.

"We're both going to work together for the good of the party. That's the gist of it," said Moseley, who favors abortion rights.

Several Republican officials, including 10th District GOP Chairman Charles Weir, urged the group to embrace a pro-choice stance.

Weir said the party's stance on abortion was alienating some young voters. "We've got to get on the track and get back our young professionals ... or we're going to be in trouble," he said.

Mary Vaughan Gibson, president of the Virginia Federation of Republican Women, said some GOP women were troubled by J. Marshall Coleman's anti-abortion stand in the governor's race.

She cautioned the group about losing women voters with a pro-life stance. "Women are not a minority ... and more women are voting," she said. "Republicans are Republicans because ... we believe in less government in our lives."

Later, Gibson said, "It's a people issue. It should not be dictated by a party."

The most vocal opponents to softening the party's pro-life stance were the College Republican Federation of Virginia. The students approved a resolution saying they denounced "any and all efforts to compromise our values and principles for the sake of faulty political expedience. ... The GOP will have a better chance to win future elections through resolute steadfastness to our conservative ideals."

This position led to a confrontation between the group and Moseley.

Talking to reporters, Moseley said, "You know how kids are. Quite frankly they are an embarrassment to the party sometimes when they get out in front on these issues. ... They are not the future of the party."

His remarks led some of the young Republicans to shout him down, and to later try introducing a resolution in a 5th District caucus saying the party "condemns Don Moseley for ... calling the College Republicans of Virginia `Nazi zealots' and `little children.'"

The measure failed.

Abortion became a hot issue after the Supreme Court ruled in July that states could impose further restrictions on the procedure. The issue is seen as a major factor in Coleman's narrow loss to Democrat L. Douglas Wilder in the governor's race, which Coleman is challenging. Wilder espoused a pro-choice stance.

The Republicans are divided, however, over why abortion handicapped their candidate.

Those wanting to open the party to a pro-choice stance say it was because Coleman was so stringently pro-life. Pro-life supporters charge that Coleman waffled on the issue and allowed Wilder to take charge of it.

"Any candidate that lets the other candidate take the issue; any candidate that waffles on the issue won't win," said Frank Driscoll of Chesapeake, a pro-life supporter.

Coleman said there were several reasons for his defeat other than abortion.

"None of us want to see our party fall into feuding," he said. A pro-life stance was never a requirement for membership in the GOP, he said. "I don't think any of us want to exclude anyone from the Republican Party."

Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist watching the conference, said the party will have to overcome its division over the abortion issue or face disastrous results again at the polls.

"It really hasn't come to a boiling point," Sabato said. "If they don't get something resolved it will boil up again in the next election."